


Dies Cinerum

by ButterflyGhost



Series: North by Northwest: due South poems [2]
Category: due South
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Childhood, Death, Gen, poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What skeletons are lurking in Fraser's closet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dies Cinerum

It seems that he's spent all his life waiting  
In the dark, ready for the order,  
'Stand down, the war is over,  
The good guys won,  
The bad guys lost.'

That's a lie.

There's nothing so bad  
He says,  
That it cannot be forgiven,  
But he does not forgive himself  
For standing silent in the dark.

Stay quiet son, still as a mouse,  
Whatever happens,  
Stand guard, protect this house.

And he stands sentry, a wee soldier,  
Braced against the night,  
A skeleton in his mother's closet.

Flash bang,  
The firework smell  
Curls like poison in the dark.

A thud, as something falls.

A day, and a night, and a day.  
At some strange point he falls too.  
Eyes fasten upon his mother's face,  
Sculpted out of ice,  
Frosted with fine lace.

His father comes, at last,  
Stacatto, flickering.  
A cry, a stoop, a stutter,  
Then a gasp, and reels him in.

And the faces come and go,  
And cross and pass.

Black and white,  
They're dressed like ravens,  
Magpies perhaps...  
But she loved colour.  
Mourning does not sit with her.

Yellow would make her smile.

He draws colours on his hand.

Not red.

And the mouths moving,  
Hands patting,  
While all the while he still  
Can't talk.

Then the long silence.

A silence between the last men standing.

His father grows a beard,  
And takes out the red stained carpet,  
Heaps up a bonfire, bone fire on it.

And little Benny watches,  
Her last trace, her last stain  
Vanish.

Blood and ashes on the snow.

**Author's Note:**

> The original trigger for this, like so much else that's been good recently, has been from the Arch to the Sky story... kalijean and SLWalker have a lot to answer for. I had the story in my head for some time, have even touched upon it before (in Childhood Monsters) but one line from their fantastic fic snagged in my brain, and turned into a poem.


End file.
